Dota Heroes Guide

Sentinel
Syllabear The Lone Druid Guide

Syllabear was spared a time of great strife due to the deeds of his people. Sensing their settlement's impending destruction they turned their child into a bear and sent him into the wild. Syllabear grew up strong and savage, like the bears that inhabited the forests of his home. Using druidic powers, he can enter a state of almost rabid frenzy, and even call powerful bear companions to aid him. Awakened into his elven heritage by Furion the Prophet, Syllabear has regained his true elven form, and brings the bestial spirit of the bear to the battlefield.

Base HP: 473
Base Mana: 169

Strength - 17 + 2.1
Agility - 24 + 2.7 (Primary)
Intelligence- 13 + 1.4

Base damage 46-50
Attack range of 550
Base Armor 2.4
Movement speed of 305

Syllabear maybe a difficult hero to master since you must control two characters. But once you get used to it, he can wreak havoc to your enemies. He is supposed to be a carry hero, witch means hopefully he will be a hero killer.

Skill Descriptions
Spirit Bear



Summons a powerful Spirit Bear companion. At level 4, it randomly Entangles enemies that it attacks, which immobilizes an enemy for 3 seconds, dealing 40 damage per second. Spirit Bear deals 28 - 38 normal damage. Spirit Bear will automatically teleport back to Syllabear if it attempts to attack a unit while he is more than 1500 range away from Syllabear

Level 1 - 1400 hit points, Syllabear will lose 100 HP if Spirit Bear dies. Spirit Bear has 320 movespeed and Base Attack Time of 1.75.

Level 2 - 1800 hit points, gains Return, which allows it to teleport to Syllabear instantly (with 5 seconds cooldown), Syllabear will lose 200 HP if Spirit Bear dies. Spirit Bear has 320 movespeed and Base Attack Time of 1.65

Level 3 - 2300 hit points, has Return, Entangle and Demolish. Demolish allows Spirit Bear to deal 1.33 times damage to buildings, Syllabear will lose 300 HP if Spirit Bear dies. Spirit Bear has 330 movespeed and Base Attack Time of 1.55.

Level 4 - 2700 hit points, Entangles 16% of the time, has Return, Demolish, 33% Spell Damage Reduction, and can carry up to 6 items, Syllabear will lose 400 HP if Spirit Bear dies. Spirit Bear has 340 movespeed and Base Attack Time of 1.45

Mana Cost: 75
Cooldown: 180

This is Syllabear's signature skill and his best skill. The Spirit Bear is extremely powerful and can entangle heroes. The Spirit Bear is also great for tanking towers and is a good tower destroyer with Demolish. One thing which you may note is his extremely high health. When Syllabear is only level 7, Spirit Bear will have 2700 hit points. This is one of his greatest strengths. Spirit Bear is also insanely fast with a 340 base movespeed at level 4, which is boosted to 380 base movespeed by four points in Synergy.

Rabid



Syllabear can create an intense combative fury in either himself or any of his controlled unit.
Lasts 10 seconds.

Level 1 - Increases attack speed by 10% and movement speed by 5%.
Level 2 - Increases attack speed by 20% and movement speed by 10%.
Level 3 - Increases attack speed by 30% and movement speed by 15%.
Level 4 - Increases attack speed by 40% and movement speed by 20%.

Mana Cost: 50
Cooldown: 30

This is a great skill. It offers a heavy increase in chasing capabilities and damage per second. Most of the time you will be using Rabid on your Spirit Bear in the early game. In late game, it is highly advisable that you use Rabid on yourself because you will have more damage. Note that it only lasts 10 seconds. With four points in Synergy it lasts 50 seconds, that is why we don't get this skill early game.

Synergy



Increases the Lone Druid's synergy with his Spirit Bear with each level:

Spirit Bear - Adds 10 damage and 10 movement points.
Rabid - Increases the duration by 10 seconds.
True Form - Adds 100 HP per level

Mana Cost: N/A
Cooldown: N/A

This boosts the effectiveness of all of Syllabear's skills greatly. It gives Spirit Bear much more damage and movespeed; it gives Rabid a huge duration boost that it desperately needs; and it gives True Form an extra four hundred health, which is always useful.

True Form



Syllabear learns to morph himself into a brown bear. He can morph freely between human and bear form.

Level 1 - 250 bonus health.
Level 2 - 400 bonus health and has Battle Cry.
Level 3 - 600 bonus health and has One.

True Form's Mana Cost: 25
True Form's Cooldown: N/A

Battle Cry
Give Lone Druid and his units under his control within 900 AoE 20 bonus damage and 2 bonus armor.

Duration: Lasts 10 seconds
Cooldown: 30 seconds
Mana cost: 50 mana

One
Links Syllabear and up to 2 of his controlled units by the soul. Damage that they take is distributed equally between 2 or 3 of them.

Mana Cost: 80 mana Duration: 35 seconds
Cooldown: About 12 seconds

This gives a lot of extra health to Syllabear which you really need. If you cast it on Spirit Bear, then any damage that either Syllabear or Spirit Bear takes is equally distributed between the two units. One will work on any unit that you control. I use this skill early game to escape from ganks (Note: It doesn't increase your health by a flat bonus, the percentage of health you have relative to your maximum health will stay the same. So when using it to escape ganks, turn it on before they start attacking.) And in late game I use this skill to turn my hero into a beastly tank. One is a very useful skill that you receive by leveling this up and it makes Syllabear a monster tank.


Skill Build
1. Spirit Bear
2. Synergy
3. Spirit Bear
4. Synergy
5. Spirit Bear
6. Synergy
7. Spirit Bear
8. Synergy
9. True Form
10. Rabid
11. Rabid
12. Rabid
13. Rabid
14. Attribute Bonus
15. True Form
16. True Form
17. Attribute Bonus
18. Attribute Bonus
19. Attribute Bonus
20. Attribute Bonus
21. Attribute Bonus
22. Attribute Bonus
23. Attribute Bonus
24. Attribute Bonus
25. Attribute Bonus

Spirit Bear is your most important skill. Spirit Bear is obviously an amazing ability and it is by far Syllabear's best one. So if you disagree with this, don't comment, just stop playing DotA or read another guide. Spirit Bear has 2700 health with makes it a beastly tank, a really fast attack speed, a 380 movespeed which is ideal for chasing, and Entangle, which is a good disable. He's pretty much awesome in every respect.

Synergy is really good because it gives your bear a shitload of damage which you need early game. It also gives him a lot of movespeed. Rabid looks like it might be good early game, but the duration is so short without Synergy that it isn't worthwhile at all. The extra damage on your bear helps a ton in last hitting as well.

I don't get Rabid early because it won't last long enough and Synergy is just far more important because it will add about as much movement speed and it will add more damage per second. I get Rabid at levels 10-13 because the extra movespeed and attack speed that Rabid can give your Spirit Bear are far more important than +8 to stats. It gives your Spirit Bear close to 522 movespeed and a high attack speed which will allow you to chase down heroes extremely well.

True Form is the main point that I expect to take flak from. I don't advise you to use it before level 16 because the trade-off isn't very good until that point. The extra thousand health is well worth and the access to the One ability makes this skill well worth it, despite losing your range advantage. Range is most useful in early game lane control anyway. I don't advise using this skill until you get to at least level 15 or so unless you're just using it to run away. I get level one of this skill at level nine because you can use it when you anticipate being ganked.

Item Build
1. Ring of Regeneration and 2 Ironwood Branches (Sylla)
2. Boots of Speed (Bear)
3. Gloves of Haste (Bear)
4. Boots of Elvenskin (Bear)
5. Finish Power Treads (Bear)
6. Boots of Speed (Sylla)
(optional : Bracers for Sylla)
7. Sacred Relic (Bear)
8. Finish Radiance (Bear)
9. Finish Boots of Travel (Sylla)

Your core item should be like this :

Spirit Bear



Syllabear

+ (as needed)

Treads on your Spirit Bear provides a huge damage per second increase and greatly increases your chasing capabilities. With Treads, your Bear will be able to increase the amount of Entangles that it does and it will allow it to get more hits in on a running hero because of the large boost to movespeed. With level 4 Synergy, your Spirit Bear has 380 base movespeed. With Treads that becomes a whopping 445 movespeed. This should be enough to chase down most heroes.

Radiance on your Spirit Bear provide a large amount of damage. Radiance is the best damage per second item, and since your Spirit Bear will always be in the middle of battles, it almost ensures that most of the enemy team will be getting hurt by the Radiance area of effect damage. When chasing a hero, your Spirit Bear will get in many more hits than your hero will because he is much faster. Your Spirit Bear will also perform more attacks per second because you will Rabid him and put Treads on him. Radiance is put on the Spirit Bear which optimizes damage. You can harass a hero with your Spirit Bear even if your hero isn't around by moving around with him and not attacking.

Sylla maybe need health boosting items if facing chain nuker, but don't waste money other than 1 or 2 Bracers. The reason for not purchasing any is because you want to get that Radiance as quickly as possible so you are able to best utilize it. The earlier you get Radiance the better. True Form allows you to boost your health by 600 if you know that you are in a dangerous situation and are about to be ganked and such. Boots of Travel allow you to teleport all around. This allows you to farm in open lanes quickly and lets you get right into the thick of a team battle if one is about to occur and you are far away. This one is pretty obvious.

If the games last long, this is your luxury you should bought:

Syllabear



Spirit Bear



Hood of Defiance is to allow Syllabear to tank more, because at that point in the game you will most likely be the first hero focused. I get this item over Heart because 30% reduction from spells is really useful. A lot of the damage that you're going to take is going to come from spells. It's also a pretty cheap item, so it's going to help your survivability quite a bit. When you use True Form, you already have a large amount of health anyway, so that's why I prefer to get Hood.

Butterfly serves two purposes for Syllabear. First, it improves your damage by a lot, improving your attack speed by more than a Hyperstone and improving your damage by 60. It also improves your survivability, giving about 4 armor and a whopping 30% evasion. After the new buff to Butterfly, this item is pretty awesome. I prefer this item over other damage items because it's important to improve your survivability as well as damage. It's also a nice complement to Hood because Hood doesn't help against physical attacks.

Desolator is the next best straight damage item after Radiance. After Desolator, you should get a Heart. At this point of the game, you should have a ton of damage, so it isn't really that important to get more damage. Survivability will be more key at this point, because you're still going to be focused, so the longer you remain on the battle field, the more damage you're going to do.

Hyperstone and Bashers come next so your Spirit Bear can disable the enemy team more. By this time your item slots on your main hero will mostly be filled, so there isn't much other choice. I get Hyperstone before Bashers because it increases the amount of disabling that it will do by more than getting a Basher. The increased attack speed per gold from a Hyperstone and 4 Gloves of Haste are almost exactly the same that it's worth getting a Hyperstone to conserve your slots. If you get 4 Gloves of Haste, that only gives you room for one Basher.

Strategy
Firstly, if you want to do all of these techniques quickly and efficiently, you should definitely have three different hotkey groups. One group for the Syllabear and the Spirit Bear, one group for Syllabear only, and one group for the Spirit Bear only. Also toggle the button near your minimap that has a bunch of dots on it. You want it to look like the dots are all spread out instead of in a pyramid. That will ensure that the units in your selected group don't all move at the speed of the slowest unit.

You should request to solo. Since Spirit Bear can't Entangle until level 5, just do your best to farm your lane and only harass minimally. If you're level 5 and you do get an Entangle, just attack with both your hero and your bear and hoping for a kill. Last hitting should be really easy with Syllabear because you have huge combined damage with your Spirit Bear, so try to farm a lot. Whenever your creeps push out past the river, go farm the neutral camp. I also highly recommend that you creep the neutrals if you're having a tough time surviving in your line. Farming neutrals will still net you a decent amount of gold and experience, so even if you are forced to do this, you can still be on track for your Radiance. Remember that neutral creeps will spawn every minute, so try to take advantage of this when farming them.

Use the bear to tank a tower while tower diving a hero. Tower diving means that you are trying to kill a hero next to his tower. This can be dangerous early game because your hero will not have much health. The Spirit Bear will have a ton of health though, so this is a much safer method. Use the bear to follow a hero that is ganking as an observer ward or like Beast Master's Hawk. Entangle will never proc unless you issue an attack command to your Spirit Bear to attack (don't have your bear auto-attack anything.) Use the Spirit Bear as a chicken at level 7 because it can hold items for you. Whenever you send it back to heal, don't forget that you can buy items on it to then transfer to your hero.

You can also put a Gem on your Spirit Bear if your team needs a Gem holder. This isn't always the best idea, but if you are careful with your Spirit Bear, he will be difficult to kill because he is so fast and has Return. If you do this, you have to be really careful with your hero too, because if your hero dies, Spirit Bear will drop the Gem. When you are getting chased and your bear has treads, attack the hero that is chasing you, and there will be a good chance that your Spirit Bear will entangle him, allowing you to escape peacefully. (If you don't have your treads on bear yet, send your hero to the fountain while microing your Bear to block the hero as you would with a creep wave.)

When you are pitted against an extremely difficult lane combination you should put your hero out of nuke range but just at the edge of the experience range. Micro the bear to get gold/denies. That allows you to farm safely. When you have just chased really far into enemy territory after a hero and are returning to your side of the map there may be some creeps following you and your Spirit Bear. Use the Spirit Bear to attack the creeps while you run away so the enemy team doesn't know where you are. You can dodge them with this technique.

If you're sending your Spirit Bear back to the Fountain to heal, it's a good idea to transfer your Radiance to your hero until your Spirit Bear gets back. But make sure that you have an open item slot on your hero, or else you could drop it and an enemy might pick it up, costing you the game. If you're really having trouble with your lane, then it's really helpful to creep the neutral creeps near you. It's very effective with Spirit Bear. Also, if your creeps are attacking the tower, and you don't want to cross the river, you can just creep the neutral creep camp that has two trolls and a kobold taskmaster for some quick, safe experience. I highly recommend that you do this, because crossing the river is pretty risky, and these creeps are easy gold. If Spirit Bear Entangles a creep, focus another one because Entangle lasts a long time on creeps. Remember that neutral creep camps will respawn every minute, so try to take advantage of that and not be near the camps when creeps respawn.

You should have your Radiance by about 35 minutes in. It's really important that you do, but if you don't you really need to just power farm. If you are having trouble farming in your lane, farm ancients and regular neutrals. Once you have your Radiance, your Spirit Bear will be extremely strong. You should constantly have your Spirit Bear on Rabid and just try to chase down as many heroes as possible. When you have Radiance on your Spirit Bear, don't forget that even if Sylla isn't next to it, you can chase the enemy around with it while not attacking, and the immolation from Radiance will still damage them. You can also use this tactic to farm creeps while your hero is at the fountain. Your team might start pushing here or they might not, it depends on your strategy. If they are pushing, you should be leading your team with your Spirit Bear, and going for their weak intelligence heroes. If your team isn't pushing, just farm up a storm. With Radiance on your Spirit Bear, you should be last hitting pretty much every creep. Neutral creeping is also much faster once you have Radiance.

When you are level 16 you might want to always stay in bear form. You might want to use it only when you are being attacked like Morphling's morph stats, but it doesn't work because it has a casting time so your health goes down by a good percentage when you are transforming yourself. When you are level 16 use one whenever you are in True Form. This spell is so awesome, it makes you a huge tank. But, against a team with a lot of AoE this spell is useless so you might want to put the radiance on yourself and not on the bear, cast One, then move your bear out of the fight to tank as much as you can. One only lasts 30 sec so you need to press the hotkey for your bear, return, and use One again. You should be leading your pushes because you will be your team's tank at this point. Just go for those low health heroes. If it's really late in the game, use One with Spirit Bear and keep it out of the beginning of the battle, then bring it in towards the end to clean up. This will make you a monster of a tank.

Yurnero the Juggernaut Guide

Yurnero Guide & Build, the Juggernaut Strategy. Yurnero is one of the carry hero who can become immune to magic, has awesome finishing moves and has good healing mechanism. This post contains Yurnero the Juggernaut guide, item build, skill build and strategy.


Slicing through armor with the greatest of ease. Whirling, dancing like a dervish, swiping foes with a flick of the wrist. Poetry in motion, slashing enemy upon enemy in the blink of an eye. Yurnero seeks perfection. Seeks to become one with his blade. All to fulfill his destiny as the unstoppable Juggernaut.




Strength - 20 + 1.9
Agility - 20 + 2.85 (Primary)
Intelligence- 14 + 1.4

Base damage 44-48
Attack range of 100 (melee)
Base Armor 3.9
Movement speed of 305



Juggernaut Skill Descriptions

Blade Fury (F)



Causes a bladestorm of destructive force around Yurnero, rendering him immune to magic and dealing damage to nearby enemy units. Lasts 5 seconds.

Level 1 - Deals 80 damage per second
Level 2 - Deals 100 damage per second
Level 3 - Deals 120 damage per second
Level 4 - Deals 140 damage per second

Mana Cost: 110
Cooldown: 30,28,26,24

This skill will help him to get first blood or even escape because it gives him spell immunity. A nice skill to have. The only drawback is that you cannot attack while spinning. However, if you're attack the building, you still can use the normal attack while spinning. The animation won't showed though.

Healing Ward (G)



Summons a Healing Ward that heals all nearby allied units' life. Lasts 25 seconds.

Level 1 - Heals 1% of hit points per second.
Level 2 - Heals 2% of hit points per second.
Level 3 - Heals 3% of hit points per second.
Level 4 - Heals 4% of hit points per second.

This is a late game skill. It will be useful when pushing and raxing without going back to the fountain.

Blade Dance



Yurnero's cunning blade gives him a chance to deal double damage on each attack.

Level 1 - 10% chance.
Level 2 - 18% chance.
Level 3 - 26% chance.
Level 4 - 36% chance.

This skill provides the second highest dps boost among other criticals, being inferior only to Mortred's level 3 Coup de Grace.

Omnislash (E)



Yurnero moves around the battlefield, slashing many enemies. Yurnero becomes invulnerable while Omnislashing.

Level 1 - 3 (5*) Slashes
Level 2 - 5 (7*) Slashes
Level 3 - 8 (10*) Slashes

Cooldown: 130/120/110 (110/100/90 *)
Mana Cost: 200/275/350

*) With Aghanim

This is what makes Juggernaut so feared among players. This skill can take out most heroes if they’re caught alone.

Juggernaut Skill Build

Level 1: Blade Fury
Level 2: Stats
Level 3: Blade Fury
Level 4: Stats
Level 5: Blade Fury
Level 6: Omnislash
Level 7: Blade Fury
Level 8: Blade Dance
Level 9: Blade Dance
Level 10: Blade Dance
Level 11: Omnislash
Level 12: Blade Dance
Level 13: Healing Ward
Level 14: Healing Ward
Level 15: Healing Ward
Level 16: Omnislash
Level 17: Healing Ward
Levels 18-25: Stats

Blade Fury maxed ASAP to harass as it is his primary attack spell.
Two Attribute Bonus Points early-game to increase HP and mana.
Blade Dance maxed by level 12 to gank effectively with Critical Strike Omnislash.
Healing Ward to start pushing as fast as possible.
Omnislash at 6, 11, and 16 to start hero killing.

Juggernaut Item Build

1. Boots of Speed and 1 Set of Tangos For Getting First Blood
OR 2x Slippers of Agility, 2 Set of Tangos, 2x Mana Potion in Safe Mode (Solo)
2. Finish 2x Wraith Band
3. Helm of Dominator
4. Finish Power Tread or Phase Boots or Boots of Travel
5. Finish Battle Fury

Your core item should be like this:
/ /


Wraith band to increase his agility and hit points a bit. Lifesteal is pretty crucial for a high dps hero so he needs Helm of Dominator which can be upgraded into Satanic later. Splash damage is needed while casting omnislash for damaging/killing more enemies.

Power Tread to increase his DPS and stat or Phase Boot to maximize Blade Fury while chasing enemy or Boots of Travel for pushing more efficient.

Sange Yasha, Diffusal Blade, Stygian Desolator, and Mjolnir are other good orbs for him. But in exchange, he must have Vladmir's Offering.

Juggernaut Late Game Items

Here is dream build for him:


Those all are useful items for him. Satanic is the best lifesteal item especially when unholy rage is activated. Battlefury for splash damage. Power Tread and A.C. for attack speed. Aghanim to increase his ultimate: omnislash. The Butterfly for attack speed, damage and evasion.

In some situations, this build is not suitable. For example, when there are many disabler enemy hero then BKB is more needed, when there is enemy who like fleeing using TP Scroll, Boots of Travel or special skill then he needs MKB to stop it.

Juggernaut Strategy

You can pick this hero when your team needs a dps-carry hero and a healer.
You need to be supported by:
- Hero having AoE Damage for clearing the way faster such as Leshrac, Raigor, Crixalis, etc. When there is no creep, you can landing his ultimate on your enemies perfectly.
- Disabler hero such as Slitice and Rhasta to help you landing Blade Fury perfectly for getting first blood or just killing hero in early minutes. Of course disabler hero is still useful too in the mid game or late game.
- Mana provider such as crystal maiden or ezalor.

Beware of his counter:
- Disabler: if you are disabled how are you gonig to leech life?
- Wind walkers because they can escape you while you omnislahing thats why ALWAYS when you are about to gank wind walkers bring dust with you
- Blinkers...even more horrible then wind walkers because one blink and they are saved. Thats why you cant solo gank those, bring a disabler with you.

How to Use Blade Fury
Blade fury is just so good for a lot of things, and mostly its based on the spell immunity it gives you and not the damage, although for early game this damage is great.

You can use it to engage in team battles right away when they start because if you are the carry and you most likely will be almost all targeted spells will target you so if you don't have the money for BKB then this is like lesser-BKB.

When you will run into the fight with bladefury first your opponents (especially if its pub) will get a little confused with their spells because you are supposed to be the target but you are immune. So now they have two choices:
1: Wait for you to stop spinning and then unload all of their spells but while they wait they will get raped by your teammates.
2: They will use spells on your teammates in which case they still most likely they are going to lose the battle if you got your omni up and you have sufficient damage.

Also Blade Fury can be used to escape:
1. Cast Blade Fury
2. Use TP / BoT while whirling.

In early minutes you can do both solo and with a partner. If solo, you should put him in the bottom for sentinel and top for scourge. If with a partner then it doesnt really matter. Don't forget to block creep.

In the middle game, this is where you need to be ganking with your teammates and farming.

Late game is the time when you come out of the forest and start raping your team. If the game didn't end yet then when your team push or be pushed, your healing ward will be handy. Oh and you could Roshan too.

Based on: Playdota Guide

This post contain Yurnero Guide & Build - The Juggernaut Strategy. If you have different build or strategy, you can give your comments or make your own guide on the Juggernaut Forum.


Aurel Vlaicu the Gyrocopter Guide

Raised amongst the dwarven mining clan, Aurel grew up with a fascination for making things explode. Such tendencies were considered healthy in the mining society as a dwarf's skill with explosives determined his pay, his rank and of course, his popularity amongst the females. Unlike the rest of the clan however, Aurel sought to use his skills for more than just blowing up rocks. By combining controlled detonations with thick metal to direct their force, Aurel is able to create everything from engines to missles. Excited to be able to put his inventions to the test, Aurel's presence on the battlefield promises to be a blast!


Aurel Vlaicu the Gyrocopter Skill Descriptions



Hero Class: Gyrocopter
Hero Name: Aurel Vlaicu
Affilation: Sentinel

Strength: 18 + 1.8
Agility: 24 + 2.4 (Primary)
Intelligence: 23 + 2.1

Attack Range: 375
Movement Speed: 305
Starting Armor: 2
Starting Damage: 41-51

Rocket Barrage



Gyrocopter unleashes a massive salvo of rockets, striking random units in a 400 aoe. Fires 30 rockets over 3 seconds.

Damage per rocket: 10/13/16/19
Duration: 3 seconds
Cooldown: 6.5
Manacost: 90

Note: The rockets can only hit units you have vision over.

This skill looks awesome, multiple rocket is launched from you. However, the damage is pretty small if you got many enemies around you. If you wanna kill enemy hero with this skill, make sure he is alone. Also a good skill for push/farm.

Homing Missile



The Gyrocopter launches a homing missile that will follow the target until it impacts. The missile is inactive for 3 seconds upon launch and then begins slowly accelerating towards the target. Stuns the target for 2.5 seconds and deals damage based on how much it traveled. The missile can be destroyed by 3 attacks from a hero or tower.



1. Buy an Empty Bottle


Kardel Sharpeye the Dwarven Sniper Guide



Kardel Sharpeye the Dwarven Sniper Guide, Build & Strategy. Sniper can be a great carry who has the longest range on Dota. Even though he doesn't have a reliable escape mechanism, he can be deadly if got his items. This post contains Kardel Sharpeye the Dwarven Sniper guide, item build, skill build and strategy.


Kardel Sharpeye is a testament to his name and race. Using only his finely honed skills of marksmanship and his trusty rifle, he systematically destroys his opponents from afar. Taking great care to aim for the most vulnerable of areas, he is capable of severely injuring an opponent, and with a little extra time, has been known to simply dispose of an enemy in a single shot. His rifle is equipped with a secondary barrel, capable of launching a short burst of shrapnel at close range, causing massive damage.



Strength - 16 + 1.7
Agility - 21 + 2.9 (Primary)
Intelligence- 15 + 2.6

Base damage 36-42
Attack range of 550
Base Armor 2
Movement speed of 290

Dwarven Sniper Skill Descriptions

Shrapnel (C)



Fires a ball full of shrapnel into the air. which promptly explodes, showering the target area in explosive pellets. Enemy units that walk in this area get damaged and slowed. Deals 30% damage to buildings. Lasts for 8 seconds.

Level 1 - 15% Slow / 10 DPS
Level 2 - 20% Slow / 20 DPS
Level 3 - 25% Slow / 30 DPS
Level 4 - 30% Slow / 40 DPS

• Damage type: Magical
• Casting range: 1200
• Area of Effect: 450

Mana Cost: 120
Cooldown: 15

This skill has good capabilities for fleeing, chasing and defending a tower. Has decent dps and the area slow effect can be very useful.

Headshot (O)



A shot to the head deals bonus damage and stuns for a short duration.

Level 1 - 25% chance to deal 30 damage and ministun.
Level 2 - 30% chance to deal 30 damage and ministun.
Level 3 - 35% chance to deal 40 damage and ministun.
Level 4 - 40% chance to deal 50 damage and ministun.

• Works on allied creeps.
• Stun is blocked by magic immunity.
• Duration: 0.01/0.1/0.2/0.2

Mana Cost: N/A
Cooldown: N/A

A very good skill, especially for canceling channeling skills like Epicenter, Black Hole or even Town Portal. Notice that when you last hitting the creeps, often times, your attack will trigger Headshot.

Take Aim (E)



Kardel uses his dwarf engineering skills to make modifications to his rifle, enhancing the range of his rifle.

Level 1 - Attack Range +65.
Level 2 - Attack Range +130.
Level 3 - Attack Range +195.
Level 4 - Attack Range +260.

• Level 3 and 4 of this skill allow Kardel to out-range towers.

Mana Cost: N/A
Cooldown: N/A

A skill unique to Kardel, gives you better lane control, harass and creeping capabilities. If you are good enough, you can harass the enemies and when you know they're gonna come at you, you can back away easily due the long range. Especially useful against short ranged and melee heroes.

Assassinate (T)



Take time to draw a bead, and then deal a large amount of damage to the target at a huge range.

Level 1 - Deals 355 damage.
Level 2 - Deals 505 damage.
Level 3 - Deals 655 damage.

Mana Cost: 175/275/375
Cooldown: 20/15/10

• Damage type: magical
• Crosshair on target is visible to allies only.
• Invisibility doesn't affect the effect of this skill.
• Interrupts channeling spells.
• Interrupt works on magic immune units.
• Takes 1.7/1.65/1.5 seconds to cast.
• Casting range: 1500/2000/2500

Assassinate has a very long range and decent damage. Usually used as the finishing move when the enemies are fleeing. With only 10 secs cooldown at lvl 3, it can be also used as a nuke.

Dwarven Sniper Skill Build

Lvl 1 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 2 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 3 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 4 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 5 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 6 - Assassinate
Lvl 7 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 8 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 9 - Headshot/Take Aim
Lvl 10 - Shrapnel
Lvl 11 - Assassinate
Lvl 12 - Shrapnel
Lvl 13 - Shrapnel
Lvl 14 - Shrapnel
Lvl 15 - Stats
Lvl 16 - Assassinate
Lvl 17-25 - Stats

Maxing out Headshot or Take Aim first really depends on the player. Headshot is taken because of the additional damage for harass and creeping (as I have explained earlier Headshot has this effect of kicking in when youre about to last hit creeps ) while Take Aim is taken for range, preferably for harassing without getting harassed or for lane survivability.

Maxing any of these two really depends on you. His SS is taken when available, because obviously it’s the only nuke you’ve got. Use it to kill fleeing heroes at low life, if you have mana to spare, don’t be afraid to spam it, it has a very low cooldown for an SS. After this Shrapnel is taken, at about the time you get to this level it would be mid game and shrapnel would be useful for ganks and defending towers.

Dwarven Sniper Item Build

Dwarven Sniper's core item should be like this:
or

Power Threads is taken for attack speed, kardel doesn’t need to chase nor teleport, so phase boots and BoT wouldn’t be much useful. Lothars is taken early to avoid ganks, trust me this is where it all starts, get this as early as possible. Frankly, with no escape mechanisms, enemy heroes will be surely targeting you above all the others since you will be the easiest to kill. Lothars will help you escape these circumstances and avoid feeding the enemy team. The next item will be depending on you again.

Lifesteal will make you more versatile and will make you able to initiate. Maelstorm will give you good damage and speed and chain lightning, since you’re a fragile heroes, with this item you will have to come in last at ganks and kill of the nukers in the opposing team. Kardel is a good dps hero but has a very small health pool. Manta is built next even whether you are domi or maelstrom build.

Dwarven Sniper Luxury Items



Manta is a good item for kardel since it confuses the enemy of who to attack and gives hp and movespeed. MKB is a good luxury item because it is a massive dps dealer and goes with your headshot. It increases the mini stun probability of the hero and because it has a higher chance than bash, it can have almost the same effect. Basher is another luxury item because with headshot and MKB you will even seem more of a permabasher than troll who has a very small chance of bashing.

HoT or Linken is taken only in the maelstrom build, as you will need some kind of regen and life, take linken if there are a lot of disablers, especially if there’s a POTM and youre not a good dodger. For the Domi build, Satanic will cover your hp needs and lifesteal for regen. Butterfly is taken for attack speed, damage and evasion, which this hero critically needs.

Dwarven Sniper Strategy

At start game, buy boots and tangoes or healing salve. Getting boots early allows you to avoid early deaths. The early game is where kardel hides in his shell, you can either take bottom or top lane but avoid middle lane because you will probably not be able to take the heroes in this lane at the start. Make creeping your priority.

Kardel is a favorite hero of any good last hitter. If you can notice some heroes have a delay animation before attacking, for example, when drow attacks, she first pulls her arrow, and when she releases it, it again takes time for the arrow to reach the target. With no items, drow probably has an attack delay of about 1 sec., which makes it hard for her to last hit without any damage. When kardel attacks, the hit is almost instant. He last hits best among all other range heroes. Your job in early game is to dominate last hits and focus on the gold. Harass only if enemy heroes try to come close but after that go back to last hitting.

First item to focus buying is quatterstaff. Then buy claymore in your base then the recipe. If you’re a decent last hitter, you would be able to farm lothars before mid game starts. Now you can go solo in a lane without getting gangbanged. When in a lane, always stick to the side away from the jungle. When enemies gangbang you, you would be able to see them coming this way, use lothars then switch to another lane. Join ganks whenever possible, but be careful only to come out from invi after they initiate. Try to get last hits on fleeing heroes with assassinate. Slowly build up whichever luxury item you want. I suggest getting manta first for survivability.

When in a clash, just use lothars and go in after your allies initiate, use manta and finish of the nukers. This will help your team a lot since in gangbangs they mostly focus on the tank or the initiator, they leave alone the nukers to spend out all their nukes in a clash, which of course is a bad thing, much more so with disablers. Also, don’t forget to use shrapnel during ganks or clashes, the slow effect can really help a lot.

Well that’s about the only thing with kardel. He doesn’t require much strategy or skill combos but rather just some decent farming, avoiding getting killed and effectively participating in ganks.

Hope this guide helped. That’s all folks!... XD

This guide is written by glennlevi.

This post contain Sniper Guide & Build - Kardel Sharpeye the Dwarven Sniper Strategy. If you have different build or strategy, you can give your comments or make your own guide on the Dwarven Sniper Forum.

Rikimaru The Stealth Assassin Guide

Rikimaru The Stealth Assassin Guide, Build, Strategy and Walkthrought.



Born as the heir to the satyr dominion, Rikimaru was trained by the mightiest warriors of his race. However, the power of the Burning Legion managed to corrupt many of his kind, leaving them as mindless beasts in the forest. Vowing revenge against the Scourge, he sharpened his skills for battle. Using his small size to his advantage, he can render himself invisible, enabling him to stab his enemies in the back. He can also use thick smoke as a cover, to silence his enemies and become nearly untouchable.



Base HP: 473
Base Mana: 182

Strength - 17 + 2
Agility - 24 + 2.9 (Primary)
Intelligence - 14 + 1.3

Base damage 48 - 52
Attack range of 125 (melee)
Base Armor 6.4
Movement speed of 300

Skills

Blink Strike



Teleports to a unit and strikes it if it is a foe, dealing bonus damage.

Level 1 - 30 second cooldown, deals 30 extra damage.
Level 2 - 20 second cooldown, deals 60 extra damage.
Level 3 - 10 second cooldown, deals 90 extra damage.
Level 4 - 5 second cooldown, deals 120 extra damage.
Can now teleport to an ally.

Mana Cost: 50

Great skill for chasing and help last hitting in the early games.

Smokescreen



Throws a smoke bomb down in the area, silencing opponents and causing them to miss on most of their attacks. Also slows by 25% at all levels. Doesn't silence item spells.
Lasts 6 seconds.

Level 1 - 250 AoE, 40% miss.
Level 2 - 275 AoE, 50% miss.
Level 3 - 300 AoE, 60% miss.
Level 4 - 325 AoE, 70% miss.

Mana Cost: 75/ 80/ 85/ 90
Cooldown: 15

This skill is really usefull for team battle and ganking enemies. Silencing enemies and yet enemy almost cannot hit you. Smokescreen can also destroy trees, use it to kill Treant’s eyes or Furion’s Sprout if necessary. Smokescreen can’t silence item spells, which means any hero with Guinsoo’s Scythe of Vyse can hex you immediately after you’ve cast smokescreen.

Backstab



The Stealth Assassin isn't afraid to fight dirty, and specializes in attacking his opponents from behind.

Level 1 - Deals .25x the Agility of the SA to the target.
Level 2 - Deals .5x the Agility of the SA to the target.
Level 3 - Deals .75x the Agility of the SA to the target.
Level 4 - Deals 1x the Agility of the SA to the target.

This skill makes almost SA guide focusing on buy agility items. The bonus damage only given when you attack the enemies from behind. In certain angles, you can still get this bonus when you attack beside the enemies. Just watch the blood animation for the successful backstab.

Permanent Invisibility



Hero becomes permanently invisible when not attacking.
Level 1 - 3 second fade time.
Level 2 - 2.25 second fade time.
Level 3 - 1.5 second fade time.

Rikimaru’s unique skill. Permanent invisibility means you can slip away to enemy territory without worrying. Getting exp without harassed. Unfortunately, good enemies player will counter you with wards or gems.

Skill Build

1. Blink Strike
2. Smokescreen
3. Blink Strike
4. Backstab
5. Blink Strike
6. Permanent Invisibility
7. Blink Strike
8 – 10. Backstab
11. Permanent Invisibility
12-14. Smokescreen
15. Attribute Bonus
16. Permanent Invisibility
17 - 25. Attribute Bonus

Blink Strike is your primary skills for early games. It can be cast on both allies and enemies, which means you can always Blink Strike to your allied creeps if accident happens and to chase fleeing enemies if opportunity appears. You also need one level of Smokescreen to silence/ mini-stun enemies just in case and Backstab to help your last hit creeping.

Some people will say it is better to take Backstab than Blink Strike because it doesn’t need mana. But in reality, there is nobody outside that will let you hitting creeps from their back. Stealth Assassin will be harassed pretty much until he gains his invisibility. With Blink Strike, you can steal last hitting and getting some gold. The second reason, in the early games bonus damage given by Backstab is smaller compared to Blink Strike. Your agility is still small and your items is still nothing. That’s why we should max blink strike first. Invisibility is taken immediately for obvious reason.

Item Build

Starting Items


Rikimaru priority on early level is last hit and leveling up as soon as possible. Healing Salve will be your backup when the enemies harass you. Slipper and Circlet will be little stats boost to help last hitting. If you have money, but Poor Man's Shield as it will help you from getting harassed. Keeping it up until you can reach level 6 and every thing will be easier.

Core Items



Get your Treads and Yasha as soon as possible. With them, you'll strong enough to get a kill by ganking with your team mates. After getting them both, aim for Diffusal Blade. It gives you agility, mana break and Purge. Purge combined with Smoke Screen is almost a dead to typical Int heroes.

Luxuries



Manta Style is the best counter against gem carriers and all kinds of silence spells. Panic when Silencer/ Death Prophet/ Drow Ranger cast Silence on you, because you’re revealed? Use Manta to break the silence spells and confuse enemies! When Bounty Hunter or Slardar track you, split images to break it. While gem and silence spells are a counter to invisibility, illusions are a counter to gems and silence spells. In particular, using Manta can immediately counter all kinds of silence spells, because AoE silence cannot stop heroes from using item spells. Manta also gives you some sort of HP bonus.

Strategy

Pick a solo lane because Stealth Assassin needs to level up to learn Permanent Invisibility as soon as possible. But if you facing a hard lineup and does not feel confident get a lane mate. Early game your own job is to survive and get last hit. Don’t try to be ambitious and harassing with Stealth Assassin. This simply doesn’t work. Your early game goal should be to gain last hit and survive. Unless the chances are really favorable and you’re sure that the enemies will be forced to retreat after you’ve cast a smokescreen, forget about harassing. In most cases, you’ll end up being harassed. Most Stealth Assassin players have serious problems in farming throughout the game. If you can stay in lane for a reasonably long time and take advantage of Backstab to do last hit creeping, you’ve already done half the task.

When your enemies place Sentry Ward on any particular lane, just get Scroll of Townportal and go to another lane. With just 135 gold, you can enjoy painless last hit creeping, so it is worth the price. In addition, do yourself a favor. Watch the timer right after you’ve spotted the Sentry Ward. You don’t want to go there again until the Sentry is gone.

When you reach midgame, continue to do last hit.It is boring and requires attention, but this is the sad fact of all Stealth Assassin players. When you hitting randomly, it means more time that you’re revealed in battlefield. Therefore you will be vulnerable and can easily got killed. With Level 4 Backstab, Blade of Alacrity and Boots of Elvenskin, you have +32 damage so it isn’t insanely difficult to gain last hit. Once you have your Diffusal Blade, help out your team by casting smokescreen and purge. However, before you have Manta, ask your teammates to avoid pushing the lanes that are with Sentry. By doing so you’re spending 200% effort with 50% reward. It is just not worth. Stealth Assassin can’t do anything substantial other than throwing smokescreens and a few occasional Blink Strikes unless he has a first major item, this should be common knowledge.

When your enemies starting to have Gem / Necronomicon it means they want to kill you before you can cast smokescreen in team battles. Smokescreen is very annoying especially in team battles. So, your main task is to throw a smokescreen on enemy heroes before you die. How to do that? The trick is to split images and march in with all the images. Yes the enemies will still see you, but they will be confused on which unit they should hit. That’s the thing you want! Now just cast Smokescreen and then whack your enemies together with your allies. Silence will break your invisibility, but fortunately Manta can break silence spells. Whenever you’re silenced, use Manta. When you are facing Gynsoo user, Manta first before engaging your enemies.Sometimes you also can have advantage with your invisibility by patrolling jungle. When you find enemies jungling, initiate ganking immediately.

In the late game, now that you have Manta and can afford to be aggressive. Continue to do last hit creeping when you’re not in major battles, and confuse the enemies/ protect yourself by images and smokescreens. Once you have Yasha/ Butterfly you can even engage in close combats with enemies, but before that you’re just a combo started/ chaser/ harasser, rather than the power house of your team. The most important thing you should remember, Stealth Assassin is not a 1 on 1 killer. His ultimates does not buff the hero's damage at all, definitely tells you that you should not focus on pumping his fire power. In fact, Stealth Assassin is an assassin and a team combo starter. The ability to blink and drop smokebomb implies that he's the person to set up combos for allies

Mirana the Priestess of the Moon Guide


Mirana Guide, Build & Strategy - Priestess of the Moon (PotM) Guide. One of the most pick/ban hero on the competitive games. Let's check Mirana Nightshade the Priestess of the Moon.

A matriarch and high priestess of Elune's blessed order, Mirana Nightshade serves as a light in darkness for the front line of the Sentinel ranks, raining arrows and falling stars alike upon the shambling undead masses of the Undead Scourge, while her very presence is said to be so holy that it melts away the fatigue of nearby allies, giving them greater haste on the battlefield. In times of need however, she can fade herself and others around her into the safety of invisibility, making her a potent supporter matched by few.

Mirana Nightshade
Mirana is among few other heroes a character who needs practice and timing before she can be mastered thus making her harder to play than most other heroes but it's also makes available to spend much more time and games on to learn. Given the fact that she needs a lot of practice to control properly it also makes it much more fun to play her, especially when you reach the level where your enemy roars in despair and accuses you for having maphack and aimbot.

Pros
- Dominant throughout the entire game.
- High nukes and excellent lane and ganking capabilities.
- Has an escape mechanism that also gives you a good buff.
- Has a global spell that often turns out to be really effective and helpful.
Cons
- Has low health.
- Takes much practice to master intentionally.

Strength - 17 + 1,85
Agility - 20 + 2,75
Intelligence - 17 + 1,65

Attack range of 600.
Movement speed of 300.

Level 1 information:
- Health: 473
- Mana: 221
- Damage: 38-49
- Armor: 1,8
- Attack Speed: 1,42 sec.

Level 25 information (without any worn items):
- Health: 1689
- Mana: 988
- Damage: 104-115 +20
- Armor: 11,2 +2,8
- Attack Speed: 0,83 sec.

Abilities

Starfall
Calls down a wave of meteors to damage each nearby enemy. If enemy is farther than 600 range, it has a 60% chance to still hit him. One random enemy unit within 200 aoe will get hit again for half the damage.

Level 1 - 75 damage per wave.
Level 2 - 150 damage per wave.
Level 3 - 225 damage per wave.
Level 4 - 300 damage per wave.

Cooldown: 12 seconds.
Mana cost: 100/120/140/160.

Comment: An excellent damage tool as well as farming and pushing ability. This spell will mostly not be used to farm in the beginning, but later it's doing a great deal capping you a lot of creep kills and it also pushes really good. Throughout the game, but especially early on, Starfall is a great damage device. If you can get up on a lone hero (e.g. in the forest), hitting one twice with this is imbalanced.

Useful information: The random enemy unit within 200 aoe includes corpses, so if you cast it around a lot of dead people, hoping that Starfall will hit someone a second time can be rather naive.

Elune's Arrow
Fires an arrow to a location with deadly precision, dealing large damage and stunning the first unit it strikes. Stun duration increases based on how far the target is, ranging from 0.5 to 5 seconds.

Level 1 - Deals 90 damage.
Level 2 - Deals 180 damage.
Level 3 - Deals 270 damage.
Level 4 - Deals 360 damage.

Cooldown: 25 seconds.
Mana cost: 100.

Comment: This skill is where it gets complicated to play Mirana. Basically you click on the ground and an arrow launches, just like throwing a shockwave. The arrow flies for a great distance and stuns and damages the first target it collides with. This mean you might hit a wrong target or not hit anything at all. This is definatly not like throwing a Storm Bolt. On the other hand, it has a great damage and a crazy stun. If you hit someone on almost max distance, they will be stunned for 5 seconds from one single nuke. This skill, when mastered, is absolutely crazy and it's your main gate to all your kills, ganks and kills setups. Without mastering Elune's Arrow, Mirana is not a very fun nor good hero to play.

Useful information: The arrow flies 2600 range which is more than enough to hit distant targets. The stun duration is, as described, 0,5-5 seconds. The duration increases with 0,5 second by each 150 range the arrow travels and at a 1500 range (just about 60% of the full distance) it stuns for the maximum 5 seconds. This means that you don't have to hit your target from a maximum distance in order to stun it the longest. A mediocre arrow shot can also reach its full duration. It's not easy to use and sometimes it might seem even easier to hit a target farther away than a hitting target being very close.

Leap
Mirana's wild Frostsaber leaps forward into battle, empowering allies with a ferocious roar upon landing. Movement and Attack Speed bonus lasts 10 seconds.


Level 1 - 400 range. 4% speed increase.
Level 2 - 450 range. 8% speed increase.
Level 3 - 500 range. 12% speed increase.
Level 4 - 550 range. 16% speed increase.

Cooldown: 40/35/30/20 seconds.
Mana cost: 40/35/30/20.

Comment: Leap - Mirana's very reliable escape mechanism. Besides of it working just like a blink (with a slightly shorter range and a little longer cooldown) it gives you an excellent movement and attack speed buff. Not only to yourself but also your teammates around you. This means it can be used as an excellent escape device, it can be used for chasing and for buffing up your opponents in i.e. a team combat.

Useful information: The Leap is an activated-when-clicked ability, which it has no target. When you click it, Mirana leaps forward in her current facing angle. So if you want to leap somewhere, try to face that angle and then leap. Misleaping is common but can be quite dangerous.

Moonlight Shadow (Ultimate)
Turns Nightshade and all allied heroes invisible. If Invisiblity is broken, it gets restored after the fade time during the shadow duration.


Level 1 - Lasts 7 seconds. 2.5 second fade time.
Level 2 - Lasts 9 seconds. 2 second fade time.
Level 3 - Lasts 11 seconds. 1.5 second fade time.

Cooldown: 160 seconds.
Mana cost: 200/250/300.

Comment: A global invisibility for you and your allies. It's maybe not the strongest invisibility due to its duration and fade time (the time before you turn completely invisible), but it can be quite handy in many different situations. Set-ups, initiations, ganks, positioning, scouting and whatsoever. Most common is using it to escape though or avoiding getting initiated by strong aoe stun enemies (Tidehunter, Magnataur, Puck, Axe etc.).

Useful information: If it didn't appear clearly enough from the description, an hero will turn invisible again should he break it, if the duration of Moonlight Shadow is still active. The fade time is also important to remember because the enemies will still see you for 2.5/2/1.5 seconds after you've used the ability and/or have broken it. It's not an instant invisibility like Wind Walk or Vendetta for instance.

Skill order

Level 1 - Elune's Arrow/Leap
Level 2 - Elune's Arrow/Leap
Level 3 - Starfall
Level 4 - Starfall
Level 5 - Starfall
Level 6 - Elune's Arrow
Level 7 - Starfall
Level 8 - Elune's Arrow
Level 9 - Elune's Arrow
Level 10 - Leap
Level 11 - Moonlight Shadow
Level 12 - Moonlight Shadow
Level 13 - Leap
Level 14 - Leap
Level 15-24 - Stats
Level 25 - Moonlight Shadow

Skills explanation
Whether you're going to take Elune's Arrow or Leap at your first level depends on if you're going to shoot the arrow straight away, e.g. for a First Blood attempt. If not, take Leap because of the early game escape mechanism to dodge hostile First Blood attempts yourself. Elune's Arrow and Starfall are your main killing devices throughout most of the game thus skilling them is very important. Starfall will be taken over Elune's Arrow because the arrow's stun is the same at all levels. The 15-60 damage difference between the two abilities is not something extremely important and Starfall is much more reliable. Leaping in and using Starfall will in most cases guarantee a much higher damage output than missing your arrow and not getting to Starfall your target(s) at all. Atlast, Starfall is an aoe ability so it will help you more against a double lane or even a triple lane.. Leap is taken at level two though because its use is far away from negligible. Moonlight is skilled at level 11 and 12 where you have a level two Leap which makes it better than level 1 ( ). The reason why you want it to be atleast at level two is because level one is fine but it's not strong enough in the long run. However, Moonlight Shadow can be neat on some few occassions and you never know when you really have to use it. Having it as a backup (or for other purposes) ability is good. However, the last level is not really needed compared to Stats. The spell's duration is not very long and you're not supposed to use it and run around invisible for years like the Wind Walk ability, so extending its duration as well as its mana cost is not as smart as levelling Stats for more survivability which Mirana lacks a bit.

Item Build

The starting items



These are the items you ought to buy from start as soon as you've chosen your hero. The 3 x Slippers of Agility are for the last hit damage which will hopefully help you last hit better against nifty lane heroes (Nevermore, Viper and Warlock for example). As for the Ancient Tangoes of Essifations and the Clarity Potion you ought to buy 2-4 (depending on the mode) and 1 respectively.

The cookie cutter

Core item build



The Boots of Speed should be self-explanatory. The Bottle is excellent for controlling the rune spots giving you neat advantages during the early/middle game with haste, double damage and etc. The Slippers of Agility from the core starting items should be kept for as long as possible, but only as long as they don't take up important item slots too. For example, keeping a Scroll of Town Portal with you at all time is much more important than +3 damage. Also a Mithril Hammer is much more worth than one Slipper of Agility. Anyway, eventually you ought to upgrade them to Wraith Bands if you feel your health is too low, i.e. if you're against a lot of nukers. I mostly choose not to upgrade them but that's just because I'm so darn good . Anyway, it's pretty much up to your own judgement. If you're doing well with just the Slippers, there's no need spending extra money on upgrading them. Else go ahead and buy the extra health/damage.

Items afterwards



Boots of Travel are bought to give you better movement speed, higher ganking and capability and most importantly excellent map domination for both farming, escaping and ganking. Mjollnir gives you excellent damage and it lets you clear large creep waves within seconds. It's a huge damage boost and a great farming device. Eye of Skadi gives you an extremely helpful slow effect allowing you to chase nearly every hero. The frost arrows and chain lightning stacks on Mirana so you can easily get both items without one orb effect cancelling the other. Furthermore Eye of Skadi gives you a much needed survivability boost (a lot of health and some nice stats) as well as some damage. Finally, Butterfly is of course bought for its damage and increased attack speed, but the evasion buff is certainly not negligible either.

+
- Great map control.
- Huge damage.
- Excellent survivability.
- Good chasing capability.

-
- Very expensive build.
- Huge tier 4 items with few but expensive pieces.

The fast and furious

The reason this build is called "the fast and furious" is because it's fast and furious. It's still meant to be for a carry Mirana, however, this often takes less focused farming. You will mostly be able to buy your items faster instead of farming 30 minutes for a single item thus making you able to gain more damage quicker. It's very offensive though because it's weaker in terms of effective hit points which means you will be more of a glass canon when you fight. You are able to deal a high amount of damage but you shatter from taking a mediocre amount yourself.

Core item build



Unlike the cookie cutter, the fast and furious' build uses Power Treads (preferably with strength) and Wraith Bands instead of Slippers of Agility. This build also aims at high late game items that require much farm, though the pieces are lighter, fewer and more "accessible", but the change of items means you'll have less attack speed and less health thus making both Power Treads and Wraith Bands obligatory. During the build, one of the three Slippers of Agility can be sold to make space for more important items.

Items afterwards



The Stygian Desolator and Butterfly mix is becoming more populare nowadays. The orb effect from Stygian is great, the damage is high and Butterfly adds a lot of the missing attack speed as well as extra damage. Finally, the Buriza-do Kyanon is bought to make you a true late game dps with high damage and raping critical strikes.

+
- A cheap and simple build.
- Most of the piees are light and easy to farm and gives you fine stats in return.
- Gives you a very high damage output which is a mix of attack speed, armor penalty and critical strikes.
- Gives a good fallback opportunity with the cheap man's build.

-
- Mediocre map control.
- Mediocre farming capability.
- Weak survivability and health.

Cheap man's build

Whether you like it or not, it's almost certain that it will happen from time to time. Things don't go as you want them to. You're being outplayed, underleveled and ganked. You're farming poorly and you can't gank your enemies. The cheap man's build is a good semi fall-back build for when you fail and realize that you won't have time to farm the bigger items. This build reminds much of the fast and furious but it slightly different, yet it gives you a good chance to bring you back into the game and once again shred your enemies to pieces.

Core item build



The core build looks exactly the same as the fast and furious' but the justification is different. Power Treads are bought because they're cheap and gives you some neat, cheap health. The Slippers of Agility are also upgraded to Wraith Bands, also for the reason that it gives you some cheap damage and some more hit points which will help you survive longer. However, one of the three ought to be sold among the way to make space for new and better items.

Items afterwards


Stygian Desolator is a sweet item with high damage and a strong orb effect. As a bonus, the pieces are simple and easy to farm. It drags you back in the game as a good damage dealer and lets you dish out much damage. However, the downside is that it makes you a glass canon. You're able to blast your enemies but you will shatter from taking only few hits. This is why we recover the missing survivability by the Power Treads and Wraith Bands. Finally, if you're able to, farm a Heart of Tarrasque. It's not as good as Eye of Skadi but it's cheaper and gives you just about the same survivability which you will probably be needing if it's necessary going through the cheap man's build.

+
- A cheap and simple build.
- Most of the piees are light and easy to farm and gives you fine stats in return.
- Allows you to regain your lost strength in a game where everything seemed to go wrong.
- Gives a good opportunity for a come back into the fast and furious carry course.

-
- Mediocre map control.
- Mediocre farming capability.
- Not a complete late game damage dealer.

Optional items

Black King Bar is definatly an excellent choice; of course only if you fight against a lot of disablers or sheepsticks. I'd strongly recommend you to buy it after one or two main items (like Mjollnir or Stygian Desolator) if you're having problems against disables. This item will mostly give you 10 seconds of free fire on your enemies where they cannot touch you at all with their stuns or Guinsoo's'.

Linken's Sphere is another cool item, especially to counter some, but not horribly many, disables or strong nukes like Lina's Laguna Blade or Lion's Finger of Death. Your Linken's Sphere will mostly completely counter such spells and the item itself will also give you some neat stats and regeneration. However, I myself mostly choose not to get it versus heroes like Zeus or Sniper which are generally heroes that activates your spell block by doing frankly nothing (in this case Arc Lightning and Headshot). Against multiple disables or too many strong nukers I'd rather choose a Black King Bar, but you will have to judge that by the situation.

Assault Cuirass is a great item. It gives you good armor and a heavy attack speed bonus and it also removes your enemy's armor. An excellent mix of damage and survivability item. However, it's very expensive and you will rarely find time to buy it. Most suitable for the cookie cutter build.

Monkey King Bar is simply another huge damage item. There's not much to be described nor much to be said.




Even though Guinsoo's Scythe of Vyse gives the most mana boost, it also gives you some nice, cheap strength and agility. However, the main reason to get this item is because of its hex - obviously. Sometimes the sheepstick can turn out to be very handy, especially against those tricky late game damage dealers. This item will often give you the advantage in a 1 vs 1 situation but it's also really good for team fights as well as chasing heroes. Not adviced against Black King Bar though.

The Orchid Malevolence is excellent against heroes with either disables or any form of escape abilities like Blink and Time Walk. The item itself provides fine attack speed, great damage and it boosts your mana just perfectly - not too little and not too much. Finally, the silence helps you kill your enemies better and it prevents them from fleeing by turning invisible or blinking away for instance. Orchid Malevolence is definatly another recommended item.

I don't have space to buy Mithril Hammers or whatsoever because of the Slippers of Agility/Wraith Bands. What do I do?
Sell them. Let's say you're following the fast and furious path. Start with building the core items (Power Treads, Bottle, 3 Wraith Bands and Scrolls of Town Portal). You then have a strong foundation for your upcoming game. Then, eventually, when you have the money, sell one Wraith Bands and replace it with a Mithril Hammer. When you've got the money for another Mithril Hammer you can sell another Wraith Band and replace it by this 2nd hammer. Yes, you will lose some money in upgrading and then selling the Wraith Bands, however, to reach a good late game you need a good middle game. To reach a good middle game you need a good early game. If you keep getting killed because you can't be bothered to buy more health, it's not gonna benefit you obviously. Besides, the money lost is only a few creep kills which you can eventually get from the neutrals, a hero kill or some normal creeps.
Of course I hope it makes sense that if you get all your items bought, you can easily sell your Bottle and replace it by a last luxury item.

Items not to buy:
Mask of Death, Mask of Madness, Helm of the Dominator and Satanic are not recommended. Of all the orb effects lifesteal is prolly the worst one for Mirana. Some of these items' survivability boost might be okay but you can get the same survivability or even better on other items for around the same price as well as getting other neat bonuses.
Radiance is not recommended. It gives fine damage yes, but you don't really need the immolation for which Radiance is bought for. You can spend the 5325 gold better somewhere else.
Lothar's Edge is not recommended. Leap should be more than enough to escape and it lets you run almost just as fast as well as increasing your attack speed.

Strategy

Early game
When you've picked the Priestess, buy 3 Slippers of Agility, a pair of Ancient Tangoes of Essifation and a Clarity Potion then head of to a lane. As Mirana is a strong solo hero, a solo lane would be prefered, but a double lane isn't too bad either especially not if you lane with a disabler. Now, as all other heroes, start last hitting and denying. Try to harass your enemy(ies) by hitting them a few times on occasions. From level 3 you should start to look for an opening in your enemy's defense. If you see a good moment for an arrow, fire it off and try to kill him. A tip is to wait for your creeps to kill his creeps. In the moment they push, launch your arrow and stun him. Finish him off with Leap and Starfall. If you're good, lucky and/or fast you'll eventually claim the First Blood rather quick. If you're laneing with a disabler, try to let him throw his stun first so you're making almost sure that your arrow will hit. This requires a bit timing though and you need to communicate with your mate to succesfully do this.

Try to keep farming untill you're around level 6-7. Buy your Boots of Speed and a Bottle and start to look for opportunities to gank other lanes. Don't waste to much time roaming around in the river. Return to your original lane and if you see a good ganking lane, try to head off unnoticed and gank. When you've done so you ought to return to your lane again. Don't lose too much gold and experience trying to gank without succeeding. Eventually just kill your lane opponent(s) instead. Keep a constant flow between farming and ganking without roaming too much. Don't farm all your game away. Mirana's capability is too high to just stand passively and farm. But you also need items later so don't spend 5 minutes in the woods waiting for someone to arrive and kill. It may take a few games practice to get a good grip of when to farm and when to gank and also how to do it. Eventually you'll get the idea rather fast.

Middle game

Middle game will basically be the same as the early game to you. Like before, try to keep a constant flow between farming and ganking. Follow your team mates' gameplay and try to follow them in ganks. If there are any big fights going on, try to stay in the background throwing your Starfall and saving your Elune's Arrow. If you see a low healthed hero escaping, try to get to the flank and shoot him. Else, try to farm empty lane or run around killing enemies. If you're doing well you can still kill most enemies alone.

Late game

Actually, the late game will be pretty much the same drive as the early game. Follow your team mates in ganks and heavy pushes. Still try to stay in the background in fights dishing out damage. Help pushing and clearing creep waves with Starfall so you only need to worry about the heroes. Again, try to save your arrow for when someone low trys to escape. If you're against a strong initiation team (Warlock, Tidehunter, Magnataur, Earthshaker, Puck etc.) try to stay even further back than normal and the moment before the two fronts smash together (you need to learn to calculate this by practice too) activate Moonlight Shadow. Hopefully this'll make your enemies waste their aoe stuns and whatsoever and keep you and your allies safe in the invisibility form avoiding to get raped. Else just stand in the back and again just focus fire your enemies hoping to kill somebody. If the showdown turns out to your favour, you can Leap and aim for fleeing enemies. If you have your Eye of Skadi, escaping won't be easy anyway.

Mastering Elune's Arrow

Shooting Elune's Arrow is not like throwing a Storm Bolt. You have to aim and time it. The very first lesson is the most basic and important one:
Do not click directly on the target when you shoot your arrow. Always aim and time it and click on the ground.

Clicking on the target itself makes the arrow's trajectory odd and you will almost never hit it like this. Instead, time the arrow, think ahead of your enemy and guess where he's going to run. When you think you've got a clear shot and a correct estimation, shoot and (hopefully) hit. This technique is going to take a lot of practice but once you master it you can damage and stun your opponents over cliffs, hills, corners and whatsoever for a crapload amount of damage and stun them for nearly 5 seconds. Here are a some situations.


Situation: Direct, clear shot.


Description: This shot is prolly the most simple shot. It has a short distance, there are no enemies to block your shot and you are shooting directly at your enemy. This shot requires very little aiming. Just watch out your opponent doesn't suddenly change direction in order to avoid your arrow. That's pretty much the only thing you have to be aware of in this situation.


Situation: Using the creeps as a cover for your short.


Description: As you can see on the picture, my enemy's last creep is just about to die and he is just about to walk back. I fire my arrow a split second before the creep dies. By doing this, my enemy's attention will still be around denying his last creep and not so much about getting away. In the moment the Necromancer dies, my arrow hovers over the field and stuns the unprepared Shadow Fiend. If I have waited a few more seconds, Nevermore would have run into cover by his tower and I wouldn't have killed him. This is an excellent First Blood method. Not only do you catch your enemy unprepared, but your creeps also get a short moment to shoot on your target helping you taking him down. Just make sure you time your arrow so you don't hit the nearly-but-not-quite-dead last unit. This is of course most effective when your creeps are the pushing force.

Situation: Curved and/or long distanced arrows.


Description: It is here in a not-so-directly-shot situation where you need to be very judgemental. It's important that you take a lot of things into account before shooting. Your position. Your target's position, direction and movement speed. Possible detour routes near your target. Additional enemies and neutral creeps that can eventually block your shot. It's also important that you shoot a good distance ahead of your enemy. Aiming directly at him is wrong. Aiming behind him is of course a failure. Aiming in front of him but not enough is bad too. Make sure to aim your arrow perfectly in front of where he goes and also compared to where you stand. Giving it too little thruttle is one of the most common mistakes. Giving it too much also happens though, so don't overdo it, but in general people mostly don't aim it far enough.


Situation: Colliding and/or blocking enemies.

Description: It's not always you will have a clear arrow trajectory for your shot. Many times you will be blocked by other enemy heroes, neutral creeps or enemy creeps. Always be aware that your arrow might be blocked by appearing units. If you are being held back by some, either see if you can clear them fast with Starfall if they're at low health or else try to get around them to get a clear shot. Leaping over, running around, using openings - everything but just shooting a Ghoul mindlessly. Be aware that ancient creeps, invisible units and magic immunes will also block the arrow.

Situation: Predicting advanced blind shots.

Description: A few times you will get into very advanced but nonetheless situations. Many of these situations you won't have sight your hero for several seconds and the arrow will be a much blind shot. This requires very much practice, excellent aiming and perfect timing. You will prolly rarely hit in these situations unless you are very, very skilled. It's always worth the try, but don't bet your money on it. It doesn't only takes a lot of skills for such an arrow but also a bit of luck. As you can see on the picture, Death Prophet is running away from me with Haste. Knowing that I can't outrun her, I choose to position myself for a curved arrow. Judging from her high movement speed and knowing which way she's heading I throw my arrow a large piece in front of her. Without having sight of her for nearly 10 seconds I hit and kill her with a perfect shot.

Various tips when taking your aim:
Be patient. Waiting with shooting your arrow will many times be the best method. Most smart enemies will try to dodge your shot by running in curves, but they will lose track to you. After realizing you "won't" launch it at them they will mostly start running in a direct line to get away from your auto-attack shots. At this time launch your arrow and hit it. By shooting it too fast you're just wasting it and it will be too predictable. Always be a step ahead of your enemies and wait untill the right moment.

Sometimes, close-up shots are actually very difficult. If you let the enemies run a bit away before shooting you will have a much higher chance to hit because the degrees they can avoid it has been lowered significantly. The stun will also last much longer. Instead of stunning them for 0,5 seconds they will not be disabled for about 2 seconds if you do it perfectly. Again, patience is a keyword for timing it perfectly.

It can't be said enough. Have patience and wait untill the right moment before shooting your arrow. Give it a few seconds to predict where the enemy is moving. If you see two ways near him, wait for him to choose either one of them and then launch the arrow in his direction. Patience, patience, patience. Don't hessitate it.

Various tips for the remaining spells
Moonlight Shadow is good in many situations. Use it to save cornered allies. Use it to position your team just before a team fight. Use it to avoid being initiated and killed in a team fight. Use it to scout (e.g. Roshan). Use it to cover channeling allies like Crystal Maiden and her Freezing Field or Witch Doctor and his Death Ward. There are lots of other possibilities, just use your imagination. Just remember that you have it, that it is a team invisibility and that it is global.
Don't forget that your Moonlight Shadow has a fade time for which period you can still be seen. It lowers by level but it is rather long from the beginning so the invisibility process is slow.

As mentioned earlier, Leap is activated when clicked and not when targetted. You're leaping towards the direction you're facing and you and nearby allies gain the speed buff upon landing.

Use cliffs, hills, corners, shadow and trees to your advantage when leaping after enemies, away from enemies or just taking a shortcut. Watch out that you don't get stuck by miscalculating the Leap direction and distance though.
The general ganking pattern for Mirana is shooting your arrow, leaping in next to your target and use Starfall. Arrow -> Leap -> Starfall. You will eventually learn to follow this pattern in like 95 % of your ganks by time.

When you Starfall someone, especially during early/middle game ganks, placing yourself right next to your target is the best idea. If you're almost sticked together to your target when you cast Starfall there's a big chance (depending on the units around you) that it will hit him twice thus, obviously, increasing the spell's effect. However, you might want to take the situation into consideration before you act so. Towers and multiple enemies can obviously be a huge threat so use your head and judge if it's smart to place yourself right next to the target or if it's better to distance yourself from your target and use Starfall in order to stay safe.

Don't use Starfall to farm during the early game. It's a waste of mana, it's just pushing the lane and you need it for ganking and sudden situation.

Do you have different build & strategy for Mirana? Share it here! ;)


Luna Moonfang The Moon Rider Guide


Luna Moonfang The Moon Rider Guide, Walkthrough, Item Build and Skill Build.


Luna Moonfang is a stalwart and devout follower of the Moon Goddess, Elune. She fights alongside the Sentinel in the neverending battle to cleanse the land of the unholy Scourge. Through her valiant efforts, she has been granted small portions of Elune's mystical power. Luna uses this gift to cut a swath through her enemies. It has been said that Luna is able to call down the very light of the moon, and is always surrounded by a glowing aura, as though in moonlight herself. Luna is a shining beacon for the Sentinel, an ever vigilant protector.



Base HP: 435
Base Mana: 208
Strength - 15 + 1.75
Agility - 22 + 2.8 (Primary)
Intelligence - 16 + 1.85

Base damage 43 - 49
Attack range of 330
Base Armor 4.1
Movement speed of 320

Skills

Lucent Beam



Luna concentrates on the moon's energy and channels it forcefully to the surface, damaging an enemy unit.

Level 1 - 75 damage.
Level 2 - 150 damage.
Level 3 - 225 damage.
Level 4 - 300 damage.

Mana Cost: 95/ 110/ 125/ 140
Cooldown: 7

After Lucent Beam did not effect Eclipse damage, looks like everybody leave this skill when build battle Luna.

Moon Glaives



Allows Luna to attack extra enemies with each Glaive attack. Each enemy struck beyond the first incurs a 35% damage loss, per unit.

Level 1 - Luna hits 2 enemies with every attack.
Level 2 - Luna hits 3 enemies with every attack.
Level 3 - Luna hits 4 enemies with every attack.
Level 4 - Luna hits 5 enemies with every attack.

Mana Cost: N/A
Cooldown: N/A

A great skill, but for harassing melee hero while last hitting. Great skill for farming as Luna launches painful bouncing glaives, also work well for team battle.

Lunar Blessing



Nearby ranged units gain the power of the moon.

Level 1 - Increases base ranged damage by 6%.
Level 2 - Increases base ranged damage by 13%.
Level 3 - Increases base ranged damage by 20%.
Level 4 - Increases base ranged damage by 27%.

Mana Cost: N/A
Cooldown: N/A

Great skill and synergize with glaives. Also helping your team, especially when you got teammates like Viper or Traxec.

Eclipse



Calls to the moon's magic, summoning a concentrated burst of level 4 Lucent Beams(no matter whether what your lucent beam level is) to damage targets within 450 AoE around Luna.
If Luna dies while casting Eclipse, Lucent Beams will still be produced at the area where she dies.

Level 1 - Summons 4 Lucent Beams.
Level 2 - Summons 7 Lucent Beams.
Level 3 - Summons 10 Lucent Beams.

Mana Cost: 250/ 350/ 450
Cooldown: 140/ 120/ 100

This skill makes people fear to meet you one-by-one. Almost result in a sure kill when it used to fight one hero alone. Watch for the creeps when use this skill because the damage will be shared.

Skill Build

1. Stats/ Lucent Beam
2. Lunar Blessing/Moon Glaives
3. Stats
4. Lunar Blessing
5. Lunar Blessing
6. Eclipse
7. Lunar Blessing
8. Moon Glaives
9. Moon Glaives
10. Moon Glaives/Lunar Blessing
11. Eclipse
12. Moon Glaives
13-15. Stats
16. Eclipse
17-21. Stats
22. Lucent Beam/Stats
23-25. Lucent Beam

This build is designed to build battle Luna. Go for Stats and Lunar Blessing in early games. Those will makes you easily to get last hit while stats help your survivability. Take 1 level of Lucent Beam for the mini-stun if you're facing channeling heroes on your lane. Lucent Beam is maxed at your last levels because it doesn't give you lane control. If you max it first, Luna will lose it's effectiveness during mid and late game.

Moon Glaives is taken after Lunar Blessing, because Lunar Blessing gives you more damage for last hitting. Take Moon Glaives early when you are facing melee hero for harassing while killing creeps or denying. Moon Glaives don’t give you lane controlling abilities, it just help you pushing and farming. A bit of Stats are gotten early as they’re still much better than Moon Glaives, and they give you a bit of everything you need.

Moon Glaives are gotten as soon as you maxed out Lunar Blessing, as you probably have enough overall damage to deal significant damage with your Bouncing Glaives. But if you're gonna for neutral creeps, take Moon Glaives immediately as it will really help you kill neutrals faster. Eclipse is maxed out whenever you can, as it deals superb damage and you can kill any lone enemy you pass by, and it deals great damage in a teamfight.

Item Build

1. 2 Set of Tangos + Circlet of Nobility
2. Finish 1-2 Wraithbands
3. Boots of Speed
4. Helm of Ironwill
5. Mask of Death (Helm of Dominator)
6. Finish Power Treads
7. Black King Bar (optional)
8. Butterfly9. Finish Satanic

Your items should be like this:



Optional


Get tangoes and some stats from circlets, tangoes is better than Ring of Regeneration since you will get Dominator. Wraithbands is better than bracers because you need fast damage boost for farming. Helm of the Dominator is probably better than any other item for Luna, as it gives Luna more capability to survive while farming. The leech helps Luna on jungling and the dominate ability will get you a Centaur/Furbols. Use them to stomp then Eclipse to get kills.

Black King Bar is an optional items. When you are facing so much nuker, it's advisable you buy this thing before Butterfly. If you're going extraordinary farming or your enemies are all DPS hero, rushing Butterfly will gives you better result. It gives you everything, damage, attack speed and especially the evasion.

Upgrade your shoes into Power Treads to boost attack speed After get some damage items, finish the Satanic. With the additional hp given and the additional lifesteal boost, you’re sure to survive much longer against enemy heroes, and Satanic’s active lifeleech gives you additional damage, plus the lifeleech, which gives you a lifesteal even on the bouncing glaives.

Strategy

Luna like the other agility heroes, is fragile early games. Your attack range is very short for a range hero. Try to get last hit and farming immediately. Don't bother for harassing, you will get a kill when you got your ulti's. When you get a Dominator, it's time for jungling since Luna skills makes jungling very easy. You can go live in the forest and gain a lot of money in a short time. There’s no problem when you encounter any enemy hero, considering you can survive whatever they can take and that you can kill them with Eclipse and a few more hits.

Keep farming and farming. Luna is an exceptional farmer and you must maximize it's potential to rush your items. Only do ganking when they are close to your jungling position. If you are ganking too far, it means you’ll lose a lot of time farming and will delay your items. The most efficient way to kill heroes is to surprise eclipse them, offensively in a lane. When getting caught in a forest, you will turn out to be some sort of Anti-Gank, so it means you can kill them when you're getting harmed, just make sure they won't survive. If you're short of HP, don't bother and leech some creeps.

When it's times for team battles, the most important things is watch for enemies creeps. Don't waste your ulti's on creeps. Tell your teams to clear the creeps first. Raigor and QoP ulti's are great way to clear the creeps. After the creeps clear, jump in and start Eclipse. They’ll receive a massive amount of damage, and all you have to do next is to attack them. Activate Unholy Rage if you have Satanic, start hitting the weakest hero and leech at the same time. Your Glaives will hurt a lots of hero and hopefully can bring you a 1-3 kill.
Jah'rakal the Troll Warlord Guide

Ulfsaar The Ursa Warrior Guide


Ulfsaar The Ursa Warrior Guide, Walkthrought, Item Build and Skill Build.


Before the invasion of the Scourge, a race of intelligent bears called furbolgs cultivated a quiet spiritual society deep in the heart of Azshara. With most of their kind murdered and corrupted by the Undead, the normally isolated furbolgs were forced to flee to the Sentinel for protection. In return, the furbolgs have sent their mightiest Ursa Warrior into battle on the Sentinel behalf. Enraged by the defilement of his people's sacred land, Ulfsaar is able to channel his fury into a series of extremely quick and brutal swipes, using his razor-sharp claws to overpower his foes and literally tear them apart.



Strength - 23 + 2.9
Agility - 18 + 2.1 (Primary)
Intelligence- 16 + 1.5

Base damage 45-49
Attack range of 100 (melee)
Base Armor 4.5
Movement speed of 310


Earthshock



Ulfsaar Slams the ground, dealing damage to and slowing the movement speed of nearby enemy land units.
Lasts 4 seconds

Level 1 - 70 damage, 25% slow.
Level 2 - 120 damage, 35% slow.
Level 3 - 170 damage, 45% slow.
Level 4 - 220 damage, 55% slow.

7 seconds cooldown
75 mana cost
250 AOE

This skill has low cooldown and manacost. Your main weapon to keep enemy from escaping you. It has 0.5 second casting time required, so use it with great timing.


Overpower


Sends Ulfsaar into a rage until he can expend his energy on a target. Lasts 15 seconds or 5 attacks.

Level 1 - 100% increased attack speed.
Level 2 - 200% increased attack speed.
Level 3 - 300% increased attack speed.
Level 4 - 400% increased attack speed.

10 seconds cooldown
45/55/65/75 mana cost

This ability will really help you slice your opponent. 5 hit in just about 2 seconds (when maxed) is great deal of damage. Especially when combined with Fury Swipes and Enrage. Use it wisely and you will be owning!


Fury Swipes



Each attack opens the wound deeper in the target, causing subsequent attacks to deal increased damage.

Level 1 - 6 bonus damage per attack.
Level 2 - 12 bonus damage per attack.
Level 3 - 18 bonus damage per attack.
Level 4 - 24 bonus damage per attack.

Orb effect

Fury Swipes will stack additional damage into a target. If you attack an enemy 10 times, you will have an additional 240 damages when fury swipes maxed! The counter will be repeated if you’re not attack your target in 3 seconds. It is an orb effect, so, do not use any other orb effect (Sange Yasha, Mask of Madness, Satanic) because Fury Swipes will override it. If you want the lifesteal, use vladmir’s instead.


Enrage



When activated, greatly increases Ulfsaar's damage based on his current life.

Level 1 - 4% of Ulfsaar's current life is dealt in damage.
Level 2 - 5% of Ulfsaar's current life is dealt in damage.
Level 3 - 6% of Ulfsaar's current life is dealt in damage.

15 seconds duration
25 seconds cooldown
Mana Cost: None!

Ulfsaar ulti’s. With no mana cost and 25 seconds cooldown, you can use it for hero kills and neutral creeps without worrying your mana pool. The skill will give Ursa additional attack before his primary one. It is counted like a normal melee attack, therefore it will trigger Centaur return damage.


Skill build
1. Fury Swipes
2. Earthshock
3. Fury Swipes
4. Overpower
5. Fury Swipes
6. Enrage
7. Fury Swipes
8. Overpower
9. Overpower
10. Earthshock
11. Enrage
12-13. Earthshock
14. Overpower
15. Stats
16. Enrage
17-25. Stats

Explanation
Fury swipes taken first, since it will help you boost your damage early. We take Earthshock at level 2 to ensure you will have a mechanism to prevent your enemies from escaping. At level 4, Overpower taken to help you net a kill. Enrage maxed early since it use no mana and give you a nice bonus damage. Some people debating about taken the last level of Overpower, since 300% is already fast enough with Ursa agility and items. I leave the last level of Overpower to your own judgement, but in my build I will take it.


Item Build



1. Stout Shield, Tangos
2. Ring of Health
3. Vitality Booster (Finish Vanguards)
4. Boots of Speed
5. Belt of Giant Strength
5. Blink Dagger
6. Glove of Haste
7. Finish Power Treads
8. Ring of Basilius
9. Finish Vladmir’s Offering or rush
10. Heart of Tarrasque

Other Possible Items


Black King Bar
When there are more than 3 stunner, you can skip Vladmir's or Tarrasque. This item will keep you from disabler while keep your burst attack on.


The Butterfly
When the games hold long enough, buy this items. You got damage, attack speed and evasion. What else do you need? Your survival will increase highly. Especially when a lot of DPS heroes on the enemies.
Explanation
The core item for Ursa Warrior is Vanguards, Blink Dagger, and Boots. If you already farm Vanguards, you will rarely go back to fountain. Neutral creeping will be very easy, because you can kill them easily with Enrage and Overpower. Vanguards will block almost all their damage. If your lane mate has a slow or a stun, you can have an early kill. Just Overpower, and run straight at them while your Lane-mate slowing or stunning them. If they trying to escape, Earthshock is good enough to hold and finish them.
After you got your dagger and boots , you are ready to pawn some low HP heroes in mid-game. With Blink-Earthshock combo, you can finish a low HP hero before he realize what happened. For a better use of Overpower, after activate it, wait several seconds before approaching the enemies. Therefore, after 5 hits, your Overpower cooldown already over and you can give 5 hits again. If your enemy get careless, it is better to approaching him without using the dagger, therefore where the enemies try to escape or suddenly you have a gangbang, your dagger is ready.

After getting your treads, start builds your Vladmir’s. The lifesteal will help you winning a 1-1 battle since the Vampiric Aura is working well with Fury Swipes. You can solo Roshan easily with this items. In the Late-Game team war, don't get careless. Wait for a perfect timing. Let the war begin and choose your prey wisely. Some low HP heroes like Rhasta, Kardel will be your target. Prepare your Overpower, Enrage and then Blink, Earthshock and tear him apart. After it, you still can chase the other enemy. You can also act as tanker and tank the damage, since you will have a tons of HP with HoT. If your team don't have any other tanker, get your second one and you will be very hard to kill. And with your current HP, your ulti's will hurt them greatly. Overall, Ursa can be deadly with the right items and use his skill wisely.

Any constructing feedback will be gladly accepted.
Traxex The Drow Ranger Guide

Traxex Guide & Build, the Drow Ranger Strategy. Traxex is one of carry who can own the game when she got her items. Her agility is awesome and her attack is induced with frost effect which can slow enemy's speed. This post contains Traxex the Drow Ranger guide, item build, skill build and strategy.


Traxex was a skilled archer in her oppressive underground homeland, the Underdark, until she grew sick of her kin's evil ways and fled to the surface world. As a part of her resolution, she joined the Sentinel, bringing her excellent marksmanship to the fray. Some of her abilities include stripping magical beings of their voices, and enchanting her arrows with an icy cold. While such powers are valuable, her true origin will never cease to linger around in the judging eyes of others.




Strength - 17 + 1.9
Agility - 22 + 1.9 (Primary)
Intelligence - 15 + 1.4

Base damage 40-51
Attack range of 625
Base Armor 2.1
Movement speed of 300



Traxex Skill Descriptions

Frost Arrows (R)



Induces a freezing effect to the hero's attacks. Each attack slows the enemy's movement and attack rates.

Level 1 - Slows attack rate by 5% and movement rate by 10%
Level 2 - Slows attack rate by 10% and movement rate by 20%
Level 3 - Slows attack rate by 15% and movement rate by 30%
Level 4 - Slows attack rate by 20% and movement rate by 40%

Mana Cost: 12
Cooldown: 0

This is the best orb effect skill, a free Eye of Skadi, even better. It makes her one of the best chasers as well as other hero with a blink type move (such as Mortred), with high movement speed(such as Balanar) and probably with poison effect(such as Viper).

Silence (E)



Stops all enemies in a target area (275 AoE) from casting spells.

Level 1 - Lasts 3 seconds
Level 2 - Lasts 4 seconds
Level 3 - Lasts 5 seconds
Level 4 - Lasts 6 seconds

Manacost: 90
Cooldown: 15 seconds

This skill differentiate between Drow and other dps hero. Six seconds AoE silence can:
- completely screw up an enemy gank,
- prevent enemy from initiating team battle,
- decrease enemies continuation attack impact after initiate team battle,
- prevent enemy's escape from the death.


Trueshot Aura



An aura that gives friendly nearby units bonus damage to their ranged attacks.

Level 1 - Increases base ranged damage by 7%.
Level 2 - Increases base ranged damage by 14%.
Level 3 - Increases base ranged damage by 21%.
Level 4 - Increases base ranged damage by 28%.

This skill is no use in early game. It is needed when a big war started, her rangers team need more damage. It will be awesome for Drow with supported by level 3 of Marksmanship and nice item like Butterfly.

Marksmanship



The Ranger's accuracy has increased, giving her more agility.

Level 1 - +15 Agility.
Level 2 - +30 Agility.
Level 3 - +45 Agility.

Since this ability changed from 20% instant creep kills, it has turned Drow into a dps machine from her beginnings as a farmer/pusher. 45 Agility is more than any item in the game gives.

Traxex Skill Build

Level 1: Frost Arrows/Silence
Level 2: Stats
Level 3: Silence/Frost Arrows
Level 4: Frost Arrows
Level 5: Frost Arrows
Level 6: Marksmanship
Level 7: Frost Arrows
Level 8: Silence
Level 9: Silence
Level 10: Silence
Level 11: Marksmanship
Level 12: Trueshot Aura
Level 13: Trueshot Aura
Level 14: Trueshot Aura
Level 15: Trueshot Aura
Level 16: Marksmanship
Levels 17-25: Stats

Frost Arrows is taken at level 1 to harass earlier against melee hero. Silence can be taken first too to help prevent First Blood at level 1 which can occasionally happen with a good ES or PotM on the opposing team and can also be used to help assist early kills in a lane against Blinkers and Windwalkers.

Frost Arrows is the best skill had by Drow, maxing it will be useful in a lane to get single kill. 1 level of stats is needed in early game to gain more health.

Maximum level of Silence will be useful in mid game against enemy's nuke heroes. Once they got silenced, they can do nothing and Drow together with her teammate will kill them or at least kill one of them.

Marksmanship is taken without need much explanation. More agility increase her damage, attack speed and armor and at level 16 no hero can equal her agility.

Traxex Item Build

1. Circlet of Nobility, 2 set of Tangos, Animal Courier
2. Slipper of Agility (from the side shop)
3. Finish Wraith Band x 2
4. Boots of Speed
5. Finish Power Tread
6. Yasha, Kelen's Dagger or lothar edge

Drow Ranger core item should be like this:



2 Wraith Bands will increase her health and damage.

Power tread gives her extra attack speed and:
- 190 hp (strength mode) or
- 10 damage (agility mode).

Blink Dagger or Lothar Edge is needed for surprise attack and a good escape. Blink dagger is better than Lothar Edge for surprise attack but Lothar Edge gives her more damage and better for escape.

Yasha is a core item now as it gives IAS and MS. It can be turned into Manta later.

Traxex Late Game Items


Manta should be the first item to be made after finishing her core items. It gives her a lot of DPS and also gives 190 hp. Then Crystalys should be built because it will give her a critical chance and this will make her do a lot more damage. The Butterfly made for +30 damage, +30 agility and +30 evasion will increase her survivability and on top of that her images will get the bonus damage from the agility stats. Buriza is better then mkb because true shot doesn't work too well with frost arrows but critical carries to images, giving the better dps (Also RED NUMBERS ARE IMPRESSIVE). Heart is a pretty choice to boost her hp and hp regeneration for her survivability much better.

Strategy to Pick and Play Drow Ranger

You should pick this hero if your team needs a good carry hero which can silence enemy's nuke hero even can kill if you do a surprise attack first. You need to be supported by:
- Team battle initiator like Raigor or Tauren
- Disabler like Rhasta or Atropos.

Beware of her counter:
- Nukers. Since Drow has low hp she gets raped by heavy nukers. If you get caught with less than half health you're going to get killed. The way to counter them is easier said than done. You need to Silence them before they can kill you with their nukes and once they are Silenced you should be able to kill them.

- Assassins. Pudge will be able to rape and kill you before you even know what's happening. Nerubian Assassin will be able to destroy you with your low hp 1 good combo will kill you. A good way to counter Pudge this is to Silence him so he can't turn off Rot and try to kill him. Stay away from Nerubian Assassin, sentry ward will help you from his suddenly attack. Against these heroes keep an eye on the minimap at all times incase your allies don't call miss. Against a pudge its generally a good idea to keep a creep inbetween yourself and common hook spots. In any case ask a member of your team to buy wards, you shouldn't have to when saving up for big items.

- Ether Blast. You can do nothing once you get banished except cast Silence. Run away first to avoid magic damage (with Blink Dagger if you can), then counter attack after this effect is gone or just back to the fountain if your health is low.

- Miss effect (active or passive): Butterfly, Drunken Haze, Drunken Brawler, Blind, Smoke Screen, Blur, Backtrack, etc. You can gambling: bet your dps and take the effect risk; or just run away and try attack later.

These are short strategy to play Drow:
1. Start (Level 1 - 7) : Last hit, deny and harass
2. Early (Level 7-11) : Gank
3. Mid (Level 11-16) : Farm a lot, gank with TP
4. Late (Level 17-...) : Team battle

You can choose any starting lane. Just deny and farm by last hit as best as you can. Try not to die and try to harass, especially melee hero, if possible. Don't push the lane unnecessarily. If you have been holding a solo lane and you are above level 7, you might want to go gank a low level hero. Most of the time you will want to go gank in your long lane because if they are pushing then you will be able to sneak up on them from behind and if they use a direct path to get away they will have to run past you.

What you should be doing in mid game is farm A LOT without dying and get involved in ganks. You should be getting every last hit in your lane now and also remember to deny creeps when they are on low hp so you don't push too far. If you have pushed too far you will probably notice that some of the heroes have disappeared off the mini map they have probably gone to kill you. If this happens TP out as soon as possible. If there are already heroes after you then try to Silence all the heroes with stuns and TP out.

If there are team fights happening then you should get involved chuck a Silence down to give your team an edge over the other. Make sure you don't run into the action try coming in from behind and throwing down a Silence and Orb Walking their main source of damage.

Late game is the time when Drow shines. You will own the game when you have late game items for Drow. Become massively killer will be your role. In team battle:
1. Cast Silence on nuker and disabler first.
2. Try to kill them then kill carry hero, or otherwise.
3. Last hero to be killed by you is tanker.

How to Use Frost Arrows
To harass an enemy, use the (r) hotkey rather than autocast so enemy creep won't attack you. That is called orb walking.
If you aren't afraid with creep anymore, especially in team battle, autocast is the best choice.

How to Use Silence
Silence as many hero as you can, take its AoE advantage. Two hero silenced is better than one, three is better than two and so on.

Based on: Playdota Guide

This post contain Traxex Guide & Build - The Drow Ranger Strategy. If you have different build or strategy, you can give your comments or make your own guide on the Drow Ranger Forum.